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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29756889">I Had A Heartbeat (Until I Didn't)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siren_whispers/pseuds/Siren_whispers'>Siren_whispers</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>1990s, Alex Mercer Has Anxiety (Julie and the Phantoms), Alex Mercer Has Bad Parents (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex Mercer-centric (Julie and The Phantoms), Coming Out, Gen, Homophobia, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Canon, before the hotdog incident, bobby is a good friend goddammit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 23:20:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,688</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29756889</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siren_whispers/pseuds/Siren_whispers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex Mercer had to come out a few times in his lifetime: to himself, his friends, his family.  One of those things went well, the others not so much.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bobby | Trevor Wilson &amp; Alex Mercer, Bobby | Trevor Wilson &amp; Alex Mercer &amp; Luke Patterson &amp; Reggie Peters</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>70</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Had A Heartbeat (Until I Didn't)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So this is the first thing I've written for this fandom (but I am currently working on a multi-chapter fic for it) but I have absolutely loved this show for months and I really love all the characters.</p><p>There is some violence in this and some blatant homophobia, I didn't use the archive warning for "graphic descriptions of violence" because it's not graphic, but it is there so I do just want to warn you about it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> Alex Mercer knew he was gay when he was maybe 10 and all the boys in his class were talking about girls and he just didn’t get it.  All he knew was that the girls looked soft and pretty with the hair their mums kept long and the nice dresses they wore for church.  He only really noticed girls at church: he was always too preoccupied with work at school but church had a habit of getting boring and he wasn’t at risk of failing God Class.</p><p> But soft and pretty didn’t really match up with the gushing he heard from his classmates.</p><p> He didn’t understand the appeal of soft and pretty when he could look at torn knees and scuffed shoes and hair that never laid flat, nails chewed to nothing and the slightest inference of angles beginning to appear in preteen faces.  It was all just more interesting to him.</p><p> <em>Interesting</em>.  That was going to be a word he’d keep referring back to.  He didn’t necessarily find the boys in his class anymore interesting to hang out with than he found the girls, in fact he found the way the boys would talk about girls--giggling in that way that made Alex’s heart do that thing he couldn’t understand--grating and he’d go out of his way to avoid it at times.</p><p> His mum noticed it of course.  And what his mum noticed his dad was told.  Secrets didn’t exist in the Mercer household.  Not yet.  <em>Ladykiller</em>, she’d tell him with a laugh and a manicured hand pressed lightly against her sternum, like the bone was made of fractured porcelain, <em>You’ll be breaking all the girls’ hearts.</em>  And he didn’t understand it.  But he felt it: his stomach twisted into itchy, achy knots.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He <em>knew</em> he was gay when he was 13 and he’d been living in LA for a couple of months.  He’d been friends with three boys his age named Luke, Reggie, and Bobby for just as long.</p><p><br/> They had met by accident on Alex’s first day in California, when he had been wandering around new streets he didn’t know, counting his footsteps as he kicked up stones and tried harder than anything not to get lost.  <em>1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7</em>, he counted a set of steps, <em>1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7</em>, he counted another, <em>1, 2, 3, 4--</em></p><p><br/> There was a voice next to him.  He didn’t know it but it sounded young so he didn’t run from it.  He made a few stumbling half-steps to finish the set he had started without looking too rude then turned to where the voice had come from.</p><p> There were three boys his own age standing there with their gangly barely-teenaged arms thrown all over each other like they couldn’t be closer.  Alex gulped and tried not to feel too much like he was intruding as he readjusted the strap of the fanny pack across his chest.  They all had pale skin, darkened in the areas where the intense LA sun touched it most, and dark hair falling in front of dark eyes.  He felt a bit like the odd one out.</p><p> “Hey man,” the one in the middle spoke, voice in that awkward halfway stage where it was starting to sound grown up but still crackled like radio static when the connection faltered.  It hit an awkward crescendo a few words in and Alex tried to ignore it.  “We haven’t seen you around here--you new?”</p><p> “Uhh yeah,” Alex spoke slowly to the worn pavement at his feet and not the boy’s face.  It wasn’t the first time that he’d felt embarrassed about his voice dropping early: it always seemed to single him out in classrooms and, if he was being honest, noticed wasn’t something he particularly wanted to be.  “I just moved here…” nobody made a move to fill in the space he left so he added “From Oklahoma,” just to stop the silence.</p><p><br/> “Nice,” another one of the boys spoke, voice in the same stage as the first one’s.  Alex made a face.  He didn’t know how much he considered small town Oklahoma<em> nice</em>.</p><p><br/> “So what brings you to Cali?” The last asked with genuine curiosity in his expression.</p><p><br/> “My dad’s work,” he shrugged, “we just got here today,”  He watched the dark-haired boys nodding, “I’m Alex by the way,”</p><p><br/>“Luke,” the first boy nodded.</p><p><br/>“Reggie,” said the second, bouncing on his toes.</p><p><br/>“Bobby,” said the last.</p><p> “So do you guys live around this neighbourhood or…?”</p><p><br/> “Nah,” Reggie said, “we like looking around the fancy neighbourhoods at the houses we’ll be able to afford when we get famous,”</p><p> “Famous?” Alex asked, looking around the buildings and realising he’d wandered a way out of his own neighbourhood into a much nicer one.  Great.  The first impression he was giving these potential friends was an incorrect indication of his family’s income.  “What for?”</p><p> Luke rubbed his hand awkwardly on the back of his head, where the hair was a bit too long.  “We haven’t exactly figured that out yet,”</p><p> Bobby grinned at Alex, thoroughly unabashed like he was confident in them.  “You want in?”</p><p> And so Alex figured he had nothing to lose.</p><p> He decided the next day to start a list of all the things that were different between big city California and small town Oklahoma in a notebook he had bought cheap from a garage sale that he had stumbled upon on another anxious wander.  It was a bit crumpled and there had been a couple of pages filled with scrawl that he had torn out once the book was his.  It was small and sturdy, bright purple and pretty far from subtle but also very much pocket-sized.</p><p> A couple of months later he pulled that book from his fanny pack, fully intending on adding another bullet point to the already extensive list he’d been curating.  He fished through his small bag with one hand as he used the other to flip through the pages, opening the notebook in his lap.  As his knuckles brushed the epipen and the wrapper of the snack he always kept on him rustled, he located both the pen and the page he needed at the same time.  There were three or four pens in his bag but he was very much against moving to the next pen before the first had run dry.</p><p><br/> He readied himself to write the quick note but when he looked down he saw something that deviated from the usual even, looping script in black ink that he filled the pages with.  It was all uneven, letters either too close together or too far apart and leaning towards and away from each other at all sorts of angles, written in navy blue ink.  Alex didn’t buy blue pens and he only knew one person with handwriting that bad.</p><p><br/><em> <strong>Your rad best friends :)</strong></em> he managed to decipher after a moment.  He definitely hadn’t had Reggie, Luke, or Bobby back in Oklahoma.</p><p><br/> He grinned at the page as he imagined Luke writing it, probably getting the notebook from Alex’s bag whilst he was in the bathroom or on yet another anxious circle of the block.  He could just see Luke’s guitar-calloused fingers holding his own cheap writing pen wrong, awkwardly fumbling as he wrote the small note.  Alex could imagine his knuckles moving underneath the rough red-tinted skin of his hands, the scar on his wrist from the only time his parents had let him use the stove alone blatantly on show to the world because of the decision he had made a week before to rid his life of all sleeves.</p><p><br/> Then he thought of the grin on Luke’s face as he did it.  And the glint in his eye.  The way only one of his cheeks dimpled and the pale skin by his eyes crinkled and how his voice cracked just that little bit more when he thought he had a good idea.  Alex knew Luke couldn’t resist excitedly sharing everything he thought was a good idea with their friends.  Then he thought of Luke’s arms and the way his nose crinkled and the constant plasters on his knees and the smile dropped.</p><p><br/> He wasn’t stupid and his parents weren’t exactly quiet.  He knew what gay meant and he was pretty sure that what he was thinking was pretty damn gay.</p><p><br/> He just also didn’t think he’d ever really heard anybody bring up the topic in a conversation that didn’t also mention either AIDS or God or slurs.  Sometimes it would be all three, and that made his heart sink further whilst also finding itself firmly lodged in his throat.  A shiver ran up his spine as disgust and shame started rising up from his feet through his body.  But that didn’t stop the flush creeping across his face and the way his heart fluttered when he thought about Luke’s rough hands against his notebook, making an effort to make sure Alex felt included and appreciated.</p><p><br/> He sighed and let the feeling sit in that uncomfortable place inside him, somewhere between unbearably uncomfortable and the only thing in a long time that had actually fit.  He groaned and fell backwards on his bed, letting the book drop from where he held it loosely between his fingers, the note he had intended to make thoroughly forgotten.</p><p><br/> Alex couldn’t remember a single minute in all of his thirteen years of life that he had spent completely still, even if that just meant drumming his fingers or tapping his toes.  But then, as he stared at his light, still on and stinging his eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to move.</p><p><br/> The familiar anxious buzz of the wasps in his stomach was battling with a softer thrum of wings.  Butterflies.  He realised, like another punch to the gut after a long fight, that he’d felt those before too.  This wasn’t just a one-off thing he could dismiss, it had been happening for a while and he just knew what it meant now.</p><p><br/> He left for school the next day feeling like he had swallowed an anvil and speaking quieter than usual, all too aware of his voice and how it sounded amongst a crowd of others.  He couldn’t find a single moment that wasn’t plagued with anxiety that the three coffees he had drunk in tandem that morning probably weren’t helping but he needed the energy.  He was sure his face said it all; too pale, dark circles like bruises, somehow both too much and not enough life living behind his eyes.</p><p><br/> His friends noticed it.  Of course they did.  But he didn’t expect anybody else to see the difference, as far as he was aware he was just an invisible blank canvas of a person in the rest of the schools eyes, having made a conscious effort not to do anything that could leave a mark on anyone’s memory.  But his history teacher handed him back a report with an A+ circled proudly in the top corner and held him back after the class to talk.  He supposed if he wanted to go unnoticed the good grades weren’t the best choice, but if he wanted to stay on good terms with his parents he better not get anything lower than a B.</p><p><br/> “Are you alright, Alexander?” His teacher asked.  She was a woman maybe a decade older than his own mother, with dark hair that never seemed to fall right and sinewy hands that gestured wildly whenever she spoke.  She was probably his favourite teacher, and not just because she happened to teach his favourite subject.  “You look tired,”</p><p><br/> “I’m okay Mrs. Stewart,” he told her, hating how the words scratched against his throat on the way out and his ears as they hung heavily between himself and his teacher.  “Just a bit tired and a little anxious about moving,” he shrugged and his whole body felt like lead.  “I’ll be fine,”</p><p><br/> He must have sounded about as convincing as he felt because Mrs. Stewarts near-black eyes were focused on him intensely as she sighed, not disappointed but instead something Alex didn’t have the words to label.  “Try picking up a hobby,” She suggested quietly and just for a moment her eyes drifted to a photo on her desk, “Music maybe?  Drums?  You’re always tapping out beats on the desk and I can speak to the music teacher about setting you up with lessons--You don’t need to worry about costs,”  Alex made a move to argue, to insist that he was all good and he didn’t need her help but she held up a light brown hand as if to stop him, shaking her head and glancing back to that picture frame, “Please, Alexander.  I promise I give good advice and I know bad things can happen when people don’t follow it.  At least consider it, and if not drums go for something else,”</p><p><br/> So he nodded and, as he walked away he tried to take a subtle glimpse at the photo that had been distracting her.  He didn’t have time to focus on it properly but he did catch a glimpse of a gangly teenager sitting on a curb, skateboard in one hand and helmet tucked under the other.  Even from a distance, Alex could see the family resemblance.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p> Alex got pretty good at the drums.  He picked it up quickly and saved up his money to buy himself his own kit even if he knew he wouldn’t be able to play when his family was home and he’d have to shove it into a corner of his room that definitely wasn’t big enough for it.  He didn’t care.<br/> But he didn’t tell his friends.  He wasn’t sure why.</p><p><br/> Maybe it was because they were all so good at their instruments already by the time he met them, and they all played some kind of guitar and he felt, like always, that he was the odd one out.  Or maybe it was just because sharing information about himself always felt like stripping naked in a room full of people that didn’t know him well enough to be nice about it but did know him well enough to never let him live it down.</p><p><br/> But that changed one day when they were hanging out in Luke’s living room, three of them piled on top of each other on one sofa as Alex sat by himself on the other.  He had been invited to join the mess of gangly limbs and giggles on the other couch but he just shook his head and sat by himself, hands folded in his lap and feet rooted firmly on the floor.  Even just looking at his friends he could imagine his father’s voice as their feet were swept from the sofa and they were chastised for looking unpresentable.  Alex pulled the soft grey fabric of his sleeves up over his hands and looked intently at the freckles on his knuckles.  He knew he’d have to come out to the boys eventually and he really didn’t want to make things any weirder than they would have to be.<br/> “We should make a band,” Luke had said, throwing out the idea with a glimmer of hope behind it that didn’t accompany most of his ideas.</p><p><br/> Reggie tried to sit up from the middle of the pile but found himself pretty stuck under Bobby’s legs.  “Hell yeah!” He exclaimed from his almost completely horizontal position.</p><p><br/> “Alex doesn’t play any instruments,” Bobby reminded them and Reggie's face fell for a moment as Luke eased himself from his spot on the couch to approach Alex, ready to negotiate how they could make the idea a reality.</p><p><br/> “That’s cool man, we could all chip in to get you some lessons or something?” he said as Alex fumbled for words.  He didn’t know if it was Luke’s face being so close to his own that was an obstacle or just his perpetual struggle to communicate but it was definitely fuelling an uncomfortable silence.</p><p><br/> None of them had been in his room.  None of them had been any further into his house than the hallway that the front door led into where they would be invited to wait for him if they came over to pick him up.  He didn’t want to put his friends through listening to his parents’ snide remarks and he honestly just wanted some time away so he had never even really thought to invite them.</p><p><br/> He regretted it a little because it meant he had to actually use words to share information instead of just featuring nonchalantly to the instrument in the corner how he wanted to.</p><p><br/> “Uhhh,” His voice caught in his throat and he suddenly felt weird having hidden this from them, “I've been taking drum lessons for a little while?” He hadn’t meant for it to come out as a question but he thought the words were clear enough to compensate for the implications of his inflection.  Hopefully.</p><p><br/> And, just like that, their as-yet-nameless band was formed.</p><p> </p><p><br/> “We need a name,” Bobby said once the initial excitement had worn off.  They all nodded so Alex grabbed his notebook and turned it to a blank page.<br/> Reggie shook his head slowly, humorously.  “Dang man, you’re like Mary Poppins,” Alex chuckled, “I swear you always have everything we need in there,” As if to prove his point, Reggie’s stomach grumbled and Alex rolled his eyes fondly as he tossed a cereal bar in his direction.</p><p><br/> After maybe 30 minutes and several suggestions from Reggie, such as <em>LARB</em>, that they turned down vehemently, they had the name Sunset Curve circled in the middle of the page.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It was Alex’s freshman year when he decided that he hated high school.  Really, it was his first day of his freshman year and his second class of the day.</p><p> Gym class had, from the moment Alex stepped into the locker room with Reggie chatting up a storm by his side, been a complete and utter bust.</p><p> He didn’t know anybody else in his class and, even though he was one of the tallest people in the room, he immediately felt small and about seven years old again.  He gulped and steeled himself, setting his stuff down on the bench and staring intently at the wall just in case.  Nobody knew but that didn’t mean that nobody knew and it didn’t mean nobody was going to find out.</p><p> Reggie kept talking but it barely registered to Alex as he shrugged off the too-big blue hoodie his mum had eyed with clear disdain before he left that morning.  He ran his thumbs over a frayed hem and tried to remind himself that he was fine, that nobody knew, that it was pretty likely most of them felt pretty uncomfortable in that locker room.</p><p><br/> That all went out of the door when he looked away from the off-white wall and the graffiti scrawled across it and his eyes caught a pair across the room.  He looked away as soon as the eye contact registered but that didn’t stop him registering the sneer and the malicious glint.  His heart sunk and he balled the fabric at the hem of his t-shirt in his hands, not making any efforts to actually change it.</p><p><br/> “Mercer is it?” Alex was pretty sure that voice was attached to the boy whose eyes he had met and he hated it immediately.  He wondered how the boy knew his name but he doubted it was a good time to ask.  “What were you looking at Mercer?”  Alex had been looking at the slurs scrawled in sharpie on the wall but he doubted that was the answer this kid wanted to hear.  “Well?” He pressed and Alex pursed his lips and looked down, “Are you gonna answer me?  What are you Mercer?  Are you a fucking queer?”</p><p><br/> “No,” his voice sounded like someone else’s but at the very least he had denied the accusation.  Even if it made his body feel like it was filled with cement.  He spent the rest of the day dreading every coming second, wondering more than anything how someone could already pick up on it.</p><p><br/> His friends noticed pretty quickly that, basically as soon as they moved schools, Alex seemed to shrink.</p><p><br/> Alex wished that it stopped there; that the worst it got was a few words in the locker room and a couple of accusatory stares in the hallways.  But it couldn’t be that easy.</p><p><br/> Things didn’t happen so much when Alex had his bandmates by his side but there were times when he was alone and before he could even register what was happening he would be halfway to the floor, that phantoms of hands or shoulders on his chest, little remnants of pain nothing compared to the way his back slammed against the lockers, winding him.  It hurt more every time it happened, the bruising from the last instance still there.  Something, he wasn’t sure what, was telling him to keep it from his friends so he never mentioned it and he started wearing an undershirt when he had gym.</p><p><br/> It worked well for a while.  Even when Luke greeted him with an enthusiastic pat on the back and he winced and when Reggie poked him from the seat behind him in biology to hand him a note and when he was left with the hard chair in the corner of Bobby’s garage that hurt his back at the best of times.  It was working pretty well until a group of kids followed him halfway home on a day when he didn’t have plans with the band and he didn’t realise until it was too late.</p><p><br/> He was walking one moment and the next he could hear words he wished he didn’t know and the feeling of gravel against his skull.  So he was on the floor and there wasn’t really anything he could do because he’d fallen on his hands and the sharp pain shooting up his left wrist was definitely a bad sign.  So he just laid there and let it happen.</p><p><br/> They left after some more biting words and a few kicks to his ribs and he just stayed there on the rough ground for 10 minutes, making sure they were gone.  He rolled onto his back and tried not to look down at his hands, focusing on breathing even though his ribs felt like they’d been put in a hydraulic press.  He noted the small rips in the knees of his jeans that hadn’t been there before, the blood staining the light threads of the fabric.  He noted his bloody knees and all the gravel stuck in them before he finally looked at his hands.  There were similar grit-filled grazes on his palms and he winced as he tried to pick himself up, only using his right hand.  His left hand was purple, his wrist obviously swollen and hurting like nothing else ever had.</p><p><br/> He didn’t go home even though he was only 10 minutes away.  He pulled himself to his feet and tried to ignore the pain that was absolutely everywhere as he beelined to Bobby’s garage.  He didn’t think this was something he could explain to his dad and he knew for absolute certain that John Mercer wouldn’t stop asking questions until he got answers.  And Alex didn’t really have any to give.  His head hurt so much he couldn’t even start thinking of excuses yet.</p><p><br/> Alex was beyond glad that Bobby’s garage was open.  It meant that Bobby was there and also that he wouldn’t have to stumble to the front door that Bobby’s parents would probably open, looking how he did.  He stumbled in, barely getting through the door before he fell to the floor and he felt the panic and the dread and the pain he had managed to suppress catching up with him all at once.  He put his head in the hand that didn’t feel like it had been run over and just tried to breathe as he heard clattering in the loft.</p><p><br/> “Who’s there?” Bobby’s voice called from the loft as he started on his way down the stairs.  He looked wary, like he didn’t know what to expect.  Alex would have called out and answered but everything hurt and his attempts to breathe deeply like his friends always told him to do when he started panicking sent pain rocketing through his ribs.  Bobby’s eyes scanned the room until they landed on the door and Alex looking small and crumpled on the floor in front of them.  Bobby abandoned his caution and ran the rest of the way down the stairs, dropping to his knees by his friend’s side.  “Alex!”  He put his hand on his friend’s back as if by instinct but the wince made him draw it back.  “Fuck man, what happened?”</p><p><br/> And, stumbling over every other word and pausing when it all got a bit much, Alex told him exactly what had happened.  Bobby didn’t know what else to do besides sit next to him and listen so he did exactly that.</p><p><br/> “Shit dude, then after a moment, “why didn’t you just tell them you aren’t queer?”</p><p><br/> And there it was.</p><p><br/> The answers rushed through his head all at once.  I have, he could say, but it didn’t do anything, clearly.  Or maybe I didn’t get the chance, or it wasn’t like it would have changed anything.  But he didn’t say any of those.</p><p><br/> “Because I am,” he told his knees, quietly, breathing the words to life like saying it made it real.</p><p><br/> “Oh,” Bobby tensed next to him and for a horrifying second Alex was sure he’d fucked everything up and he was going to lose the few friends he’d managed to make in California.  Maybe Bobby would tell everyone and it would all get worse at school and his dad might catch wind and then he wouldn’t have a roof over his head or-</p><p><br/> Bobby cut him off before he could spiral any further.  “I wasn’t expecting that, man,” He said quietly, tentatively like he was suddenly scared to death of saying the wrong thing, “But just know I’d be hugging you if it wouldn’t hurt you,” So he just gently brushed the grit from where it was stuck in Alex’s hair and grinned at Alex when the blond sent him a tentative smile through his tears.</p><p><br/> “Wait here,” Bobby told him after a moment, “I’ll be back, I promise, but I need to go speak to my dad.  We need to drive you to the hospital,”  Alex started shaking his head but Bobby cut him off, placing his hand on Alex's Shoulder Like he was scared he would break, “Dude, your wrist is definitely broken and you wince every time you try to breathe,”  And Alex wanted to deny it but he couldn’t.</p><p><br/> “Okay,” he breathed.  And while Bobby was gone he sat there feeling small and injured but also more relieved and free and comfortable than he had felt in years.  He just sat there and formulated excuses he could give his dad.</p><p><br/> Luke and Reggie had been incredibly worried when he showed up to school the next day covered in cuts and bruises with a cast on his arm but he just fed them excuses as Bobby looked at him with pursed lips.  He knew the question was there, a “Why don’t you just tell them?” resting on Bobby’s tongue, but Alex couldn’t.  He didn’t know why but he couldn’t.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p> It was almost a year later when he told Luke and Reggie.  It hadn’t been a good year by any means but he loved his friends and, as much as he had tried to distance himself from all of the group bundles and the constant physical contact, he found himself with Bobby’s arm cast around his shoulders more often than not, like he was determined to prove to Alex it was okay.  He still put his foot in his mouth a lot, like when Alex had gone over to his house a few weeks after that incident because he couldn’t bear being around his family at that moment and Bobby had asked him who turned him.  He had seen the look on Alex’s face and apologised profusely as Alex just laughed even if there were still remnants of pain flaring up across his side.  But he never meant anything by it.</p><p><br/> Eventually Alex found the confidence to tell his other friends.</p><p><br/> Reggie was trying to set him up on another date.  Alex didn’t know why he still tried when every prior attempt had ended when Alex said no and Bobby backed him up.</p><p><br/> “You know that girl in our world history class?” Reggie asked him from the floor next to the couch, “The one who always wears those boots?” Alex did, and he could picture the floral embroidery on her boots before he could recall her face, pale with wide, dark eyes and framed by thick, shiny dark hair.  Objectively, he got it.  “I would’ve asked her out but she said she had a thing for blonds and I mentioned that I might have a friend…”</p><p><br/> “You have friends now, Reg?” Alex asked, partly just to avoid the conversation.</p><p><br/> Reggie made a face at him and continued like Alex hadn’t said a thing.  “I can introduce you two if you want?”</p><p><br/> Alex sighed.  “Thanks dude, but no thanks,” Reggie made a hurt face at him and LUke cocked his head like a confused puppy.  Alex was pretty glad the crush he had once had had disappeared when Luke, the graceful creature that he was, had walked head first into the glass doors in Bobby’s house that opened out into his garden.  If it hadn’t he was pretty sure that lost puppy look would have made his heart flutter and everything would just be that much more awkward.</p><p><br/> “Come on Lex,” Reggie whined.</p><p><br/> “Yeah dude,” Luke agreed, “She’s pretty.  We’d all be jumping at the chance,”</p><p><br/> “Leave him alone guys,” Bobby’s hand found its way onto Alex’s shoulder, “He said no,”</p><p><br/> “But why though?” Reggie pressed.  Alex’s body felt like it was full of worms wriggling around just beneath his skin as he saw a chance.  “Is there another girl you like or something?  Or have you got a secret girlfriend?” He saw the uneasy look on Alex’s face and completely misinterpreted it.  “You do have a secret girlfriend!” he decided.  “Why didn’t you tell us about her, man?  When can we meet her?  What’s she like?  Do we already know her?”</p><p><br/> Luke looked like he was struggling to keep up with the conversation that really, by that point, Reggie was just having with himself.  Bobby and Alex were sharing looks, on the border between uneasy and amused.  So Alex just sighed and figured that that moment was as good as any other.</p><p><br/> “I don’t have a secret girlfriend, Reg,” He said and Bobby’s grip on his shoulder tightened comfortingly, “I’m not really… interested in having a girlfriend?” It came out like a question but he was pretty sure of what he was saying.</p><p><br/> “Oh,” Luke said, “I get it, you’re not really ready to settle down with a girl yet.  You’re busy with the band and your grades, that makes sense,”</p><p><br/> Bobby looked to Alex for permission before he looked back to Luke, “Uh, I’m pretty sure you don’t get it man,” Alex tried not to laugh.  This was weird and he was nervous and he needed to get rid of some of that energy so he started pacing.</p><p><br/> “Why are you on the catwalk?” Reggie raised his eyebrows and Alex sighed, grabbing sections of hair in his hands and pulling.  Luke looked worried.</p><p><br/> “Because,” Alex said, like that was an answer in and of itself.  He knew it wasn’t.  “It’s not that I’m too focused on other things,” He stopped to think, “Or I guess that I am but not how you’re thinking,” Bobby chuckled and Alex sent him a grateful look as Luke and Reggie turned their heads, clearly not following.  He held up his hands in surrender, knowing their questions weren’t his to answer.  “Fucking hell,” Alex ran his hands over his face.  He hated that this was so hard.  “Guys, I’m gay,”</p><p><br/> It felt, for a minute, like the world had stopped but Alex kept pacing and, eventually, Luke was moving towards him quickly to encircle him in a hug.  It seemed a bit awkward and a bit tentative, like he wasn’t sure that it was the right thing to do, but it also seemed like an incredibly good sign.  Reggie, never one to miss a hug, joined in after a moment and Bobby followed after him.</p><p><br/> “That went better than I thought it would,” Alex half cried into Luke’s shoulder before they all separated and sat on the hard, dirty floor where they had been standing a moment before.</p><p><br/> “We shouldn’t have made you scared to tell us,” Luke frowned and Alex wanted more than anything to tell him but the words died in his throat and he couldn’t find them again.  He just shook his head and let Luke lean on him after years of avoiding the constant cuddle piles and contact the band engaged in.</p><p> Then Luke turned to Bobby.  “You knew?” He didn’t wait for an answer, “For how long?”</p><p><br/> Bobby shrugged, “About a year.  He was in a bit of a state when he told me though, so don’t beat yourself up over it,” His hand was back on Alex’s arm and everything was a bit awkward but nothing was really wrong.  It made a change.</p><p><br/> Luke looked between them.  “It was when you broke your wrist,” He said.  It wasn’t a question and Alex was pretty glad that meant he wouldn’t have to answer it.</p><p><br/> They all sat, pressed against each other on the cold floor, for a good ten minutes in relative silence before Reggie broke it.</p><p><br/> “So,” he said, “What exactly do two dudes, like, <em>do</em> together?”</p><p><br/> Alex groaned but he was honestly kind of tempted to laugh.  “Please,” he begged, “Never ask me anything about <em>that</em>.  If you really want to know ask your family computer I want no part in this,”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p> When Alex’s parents found out a couple of months later it had been an accident.  He hadn’t planned on ever telling them, or at least not until he had his own home and he didn’t need them anymore.  And he supposed he’d stuck to the plan in that he hadn’t <em>told</em> them.</p><p><br/> But that hadn’t stopped them finding out.</p><p><br/> There were magazines on the table when he got home from band practice.  Magazines he recognised and had hidden away as securely as he could manage in his bedroom.  Magazines nobody, especially not his parents, was ever meant to find.  If he was one of his friends this conversation might have been embarrassing but really just something to look back on and laugh about.  But he wasn’t and he was terrified and he knew this wasn’t going to end well.</p><p><br/> He knew his dad was speaking and he knew his mum was crying and he knew this wasn’t going to end well.  He knew his little sister could hear his dad’s voice upstairs even though she was meant to be sleeping and he knew that she wouldn’t understand what was happening.  He knew that his older sister, the perfect church-going child his parents had always wanted, was on a very heterosexual date with her very heterosexual boyfriend and he knew he wanted everything to be over and done with by the time she got back.  He knew he’d probably not be coming back to this house again.</p><p><br/> He knew there were words flying around him and he knew he could understand all of them even if he couldn’t really hear them, too deafened by the rushing of blood in his ears.  Before he knew it there was a hand flying his way and a stinging pain where it had hit his face, a welt on his cheekbone from his father's wedding ring, like a grim reminder of what he knew he couldn't have.  He looked at his dad’s face, red and angry, spit flying everywhere and mouth open and roaring like a feral beast’s maw.  His eyes were so blue they looked clear and absolutely wild, not blinking just watching.  Waiting.</p><p><br/> He looked at his mum’s face.  All blank and pale and expressionless, like a wax figure of a woman.  She may as well have been for all the help she was doing.  He knew she wasn’t going to defend him when he heard it through the tears that were flooding her face and turning her throat into an obstacle.  “Conversion,” he made out.  It was the first word he’d really picked up on in the whole exchange and it felt like the knife in his side had been twisted.  He shook his head and got to his feet even as the yelling and the sobbing and the <em>everything</em> refused to cease.</p><p><br/> He didn’t say goodbye and he didn’t even try to run upstairs for his things or to check on his sister.  He wanted to but he knew he shouldn’t so he just ran, straight to Bobby’s garage.  He didn’t start crying until he got to the end of the street but once he started he didn’t stop, even as he was still running desperately through dark streets that were barely kept alight by the flickering street lights that painted everything orange.  He heard the few things in his fanny pack jostling with each step, reminding him he had almost nothing left to his name.</p><p><br/> Bobby’s garage was empty but Alex knew where they kept the key.  Bobby had made sure he knew, just in case things went sour at home.  He knew he had been invited to the garage if something like this ever happened and he knew there was a lumpy old mattress and some of Bobby’s old superhero bedsheets waiting up in the loft should any of them ever need it.  He basically fell up the stairs and onto the mattress and proceeded to do more sobbing than sleeping.</p><p><br/> When Bobby woke him up the next morning Luke and Reggie were there too, looking at him with this intense searing pity that made him want to peel off his skin.</p><p><br/> “Hey,” Luke said.  Alex returned the favour, voice scratchy and painful.  “We heard about what happened,” Alex wanted to ask him how but he knew his neighbours were nosy and his parents weren't quiet and he had ran across the city crying and he figured it probably wasn’t worth it.</p><p><br/> “We’ve all got the day off school,” Bobby told him, “Completely authorised my parents told them something about food poisoning,”</p><p><br/> “We need to get you some new things,” Reggie said, “Or break into your house for your old things,”  Alex shook his head at the thought of going back there so they went to the mall instead.  Alex felt like Luke and Bobby's arms around his shoulders were the only things keeping him up at that moment but they continued, shopping for clothes and toiletries and all the other little necessities Alex would need.  Reggie had broken up from the group basically as soon as they got there and Alex was too worn down to ask why.  It felt like every pair of eyes was following him judgmentally even though he knew it wasn’t true.  He wondered if any of these people knew, how they might react if they did.  Were any of them like him?  Were any of them like his friends?  Were any of them like his parents?</p><p><br/> He was torn from his thoughts when Reggie came running back to them, proudly holding up two garments made of soft pink fabric.  Alex’s brain short circuited for a moment before he attacked Reggie with what was probably the best hug he had ever given.</p>
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